Cloudy outlook for carbon markets

Carbon market participants are downbeat on future expansion thanks to global politicians' failure to make any binding decisions in Copenhagen in December. Maybe it's time to rethink the United Nations' role in climate change management.

Not surprisingly, there's a gloomy outlook for any expansion in new carbon markets this year, thanks to policy uncertainty, according to respondents to a recent carbon market survey. However, confidence in existing market segments remains solid.

Between January 20 and February 4, Point Carbon, which is a provider of analysis and consulting services for global power, gas and carbon markets, conducted its fifth annual carbon market survey. Yesterday, the organisation released the results of the survey, which garnered 4,767 responses...